The Invention of the White Race

Description

The Invention of the White Race is a groundbreaking analysis of the birth of racism in America. When the first Africans arrived in Virginia in 1619, there were no “white” people, nor, according to colonial records, would there be for another sixty years. In his seminal two-volume work, Theodore W. Allen details the creation of the “white race” by the ruling class as a method of social control in response to labor unrest precipitated by Bacon’s Rebellion. By distinguishing European Americans from African Americans within the laboring class, white privileges enforced the myth of the white race through the years and has been central to maintaining ruling-class domination over the entire working class. Since its publication in the midnineties, The Invention of the White Race has become indispensable in debates on the origins of racial oppression in America. Volume One examines Irish history to show the relativity of race and racial oppression as a form of social control. Volume Two details the development of racial oppression and racial slavery in colonial Virginia and, more broadly, Anglo-America. An introduction by Jeffrey B. Perry discusses Allen’s contributions, critical reception, and continuing importance. Title Page Copyright Contents Lists of Figures and Tables and a Note on Dates Introduction to the Second Edition Part One - Labor Problems of the European Colonizing Powers 1. The Labor Supply Problem: England a Special Case 2. English Background, with Anglo-American Variations Noted 3. Euro-Indian Relations and the Problem of Social Control Part Two - The Plantation of Bondage 4. The Fateful Addiction to “Present Profit” 5. The Massacre of the Tenantry 6. Bricks without Straw: Bondage, but No Intermediate Stratum Part Three - Road to Rebellion 7. Bond-labor: Enduring … 8. … and Resisting 9. The Insubstantiality of the Intermediate Stratum 10. The Status of African-Americans Part Four - Rebellion and Reaction 11. Rebellion – and Its Aftermath 12. The Abortion of the “White Race” Social Control System in the Anglo-Caribbean 13. The Invention of the White Race – and the Ordeal of America Appendices Notes Index